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File
photo taken on Dec. 7, 2016 shows people attending a rally calling for
"more jobs and better wages" which was promised by Donald J. Trump
during his campaign, in Washington D.C., the United States. With the
United States retreating to the stronghold of protectionism and
nationalism, concerns about a trade war are rising around the globe.
(Xinhua/Yin Bogu)
By Peter Mertz
DENVER,
the United States, March 28 (Xinhua) -- From America's heartland to
Coastal California and even the deep, steamy south, American
conservatives and liberals alike voiced alarm at President Donald
Trump's recent hardline trade tactics.
"Almost
unanimous concern," said Andrew Jerome from the National Farmers Union
(NFU) that represents more than 200,000 family farms and ranches across
the country and has chapters in 33 states.
NFU
members supported Trump's "America First" trade stance in the 2016
presidential elections and were hoping the new president would offer
relief to an industry reeling from a quarter-century of declining
profits.
They were wrong.
VOICES OF OPPOSITION
"(Trump)
doesn't have a well-disciplined, thoughtful, or remotely consistent
trade policy," said John K. Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers
Union, which represents over 4,000 family farm and ranch families in the
vast Midwestern.
Hansen,
who worked for the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations as
a trade adviser, told Xinhua that "the way (Trump) is going about
correcting the trade imbalance with China is unfortunate."
Despite
strong warnings from business groups and trade experts, Trump signed a
memorandum last week that could impose tariffs on up to 60 billion U.S.
dollars of imports from China and place restrictions on Chinese
investments in the United States.
Calling
these measures "a very bad precedent," China's Ministry of Commerce
issued a warning the following day, saying that such a move would be
against "the interests of China, the United States and the world at
large."
It
also announced a plan for reciprocal tariffs on imported U.S. products
worth about 3 billion dollars to balance losses caused by U.S. metal
restrictions on China signed by Trump early this month.
The
measures, or the suspension of tariff concessions, will target 128 U.S.
products, including pork, wine and seamless steel tubes.
Trump's
proposed 25-percent tariff on steel imports and a 10-percent one on
aluminum caused stocks to tumble, American economic allies to object,
and U.S. farmers to look toward the heavens for relief.
"At
least Clinton, Obama and Bush were pretty consistent and worked with a
unified voice," Hansen said. "That's the opposite of this
administration."
Bucking
the president's plan, Republican U.S. Senator Ben Sasse told the
conservative World-Herald newspaper last week that "My message on trade
wars is simple. This is going to hurt Nebraskans, it's going to hurt
farmers and ranchers, and it's going to kill jobs," Sasse said.
Nebraska,
nicknamed the "Cornhusker State," is one of America's top four states
in agricultural production, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA).
"Family
farmers and ranchers are always the first to be hit by retaliatory
tariffs, and in the case of China, significant export markets are likely
to be the first casualty," said Jerome, who called Trump's pending
trade moves "dangerous."
Despite
both political parities shouting "no," White House officials staunchly
defend the brash plan, saying it will be enacted this week,
"The
president must have a plan in place to protect family farmers before
seeking to remedy unfair trade practices," Hansen said.
More
than 90 percent of America's 2.1 million farms are small, family
operations that produce nearly half of the industry's 140 billion
dollars export trade to the U.S. economy, according to the USDA.
A
trader works at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United
States, March 22, 2018. U.S. stocks ended lower on Thursday, with the
Dow plunging over 700 points, after the U.S. President Donald Trump
announced to impose tariff on imported products from China. (Xinhua/Wang
Ying)
BEARING THE BRUNT
Jerome
likened America's 45th president's trade policy to a "bull in a china
shop," saying that "I don't think Trump would have proposed these
tariffs if he had known what the Chinese might do in retaliation."
Jerome
told Xinhua that his industry is on the front line of a retaliatory
strike and the hardest hit will be grain, wine, fruit and pork sectors.
With East coast state North Carolina being America's No. 2 pork
producer, and California harvesting more grapes for wine than the rest
of the country combined, China's proposed retaliatory tariff has shocked
farmers from coast to coast.
"Farming
is historically the backbone of America, and in colonial times 90
percent of all Americans were farmers," said California businessman
Glenn Nemhauser.
But
the income of farms has not kept pace with the cost of living and is
comparable to 1973 income levels, since the controversial 1994 North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), according to Hansen.
"The average farm family doesn't make enough money to feed their own family," Hansen said.
Following
guidelines imposed by the World Trade Organization (WTO), NAFTA, which
sought to create an even playing field for farmers in America, Canada
and Mexico, has caused "economic suicide" in America, said Hansen, a
sixth generation Nebraska farmer and Washington trade insider.
"We
are an economic driver," said Hansen, whose Norwegian ancestors moved
to Nebraska in 1905 and started a family farm that has endured for 113
years.
"We are the producers on the ground. We create jobs, and we create new wealth," he said, adding that "We are not happy now."
California's
45-billion-dollar agricultural industry, which includes nuts, dairy
products, fruits, produce, livestock feed and wine, may be hardest hit
overall by the possible retaliatory tariffs.
"California
has become a major rice producing state, which we export to China and
other Asian countries. That may stop as well," said San Francisco
businessman Glenn Nemhauser.
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